I like grumpy people. Not characters who complain, but characters who are grouchy. There are Whiners, Complainers, and then True Grouches. True Grouches utter nary a peep of complaint, they just grouch and grump and humph.

~

Last Friday, I was cold, hungry, wet, and tired.

Which meant I was extremely cross and grouchy.

I smile and laugh quite a lot, so most people, when I tell a story about being extremely cross and grouchy say: HAHAHA I just can't picture that!

If my mom were to hear that, she would start laughing oh-so-very knowingly.

Usually, when I'm grumpy, I can't shake it unless I go off on my own. Which at home, means me announcing mid-grouch: I'm going on walk. (Or sometimes, when I'm really caught up in the grouches, my mom suggesting: why don't you go on a walk, dear?)

So, I announced in the middle of Harrod's (that department store is probably the size of the Coliseum. #overwhelming.) to my companions: "I'm leaving."

I hadn't decided quite where I was going to go, but as I sat in the tube, feeling cold and hungry, I felt marginally less wet.

I wandered along the Themes, and I stumbled upon a little food market, filled with large frying pans of paella, samosas smoking, and sausages roasting. I stopped at the stand of Italian vendors and tried four different kinds of pesto.

I smiled and chatted with them a bit.

And I fel a little less hungry.

Then, as I walked along my favorite stretch of the river, I came to my favorite bridge tunnel. This bridge tunnel has white tile on the wall, decorated with scenes of London.

As I approached the tunnel, I heard music float towards me.

I stopped, and started walking more slowly.

A man sat in the middle of the tunnel, playing music that was not of this world.

I stopped and listened for a bit.

After a while I had to move on, otherwise my heart would have broken completely.

It was the strangest, most sorrowful song.

Followed by the magic music of the cello, I walked out the other side of the tunnel. And I didn't feel cold or tired or grouchy at all.

A woman stole the 'f' key off my keyboard. It happened while I was waiting for the bathroom, three people ahead of me in line. O...

About me

"I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow."--Madeleine L'Engle